PLANS to allow prostitutes to work legally indoors have been welcomed in the city.

The Home Office this week suggested a change in the law to allow small worker-run brothels for two or three women.

The proposals also included replacing the current fine for soliciting with an intervention penalty to help with drug or alcohol problems, and a zero tolerance campaign against kerb- crawlers.

Whalley Range is one of the areas in the city worst affected by street prostitution and kerb-crawling.

Mary Watson, who lives in the area, said the issues had topped a survey of residents' concerns, and she had raised the issue at meetings with MP Tony Lloyd and local police.

She added: "If you are a young woman walking down the street there's always a possibility that a kerb crawler will stop you and ask you if you are there for business - it's happened to me and it's not very pleasant.

"The idea of tolerance zones was interesting, but it would have depended on who was being asked to do the toleration, and I wouldn't have wanted that to happen in a residential area like Whalley Range. Action needs to be taken against these men.

"Anything that makes prostitutes' lives safer is a good idea, like letting them work indoors, because I have got no illusions that we can stop it happening, so the safer it can be, the better."

Another of the plans announced by Home Office minister Fiona McTaggart was for the courts to make greater use of powers to confiscate kerb crawlers' driving licences - which officers in Greater Manchester Police pushed for in 2004.

Inspector Phil Reade, area policing inspector for Rusholme, Fallowfield and Whalley Range, said police were already working in Whalley Range to encourage prostitutes away from the area, alongside other agencies who could provide them with support.

He said: "Kerb-crawling and prostitution in Whalley Range has existed for many years and the police have already made significant inroads in dealing with it. We have carried out operations to target both the women and the kerb-crawlers and will continue that work, including pressing for the courts to suspend kerb-crawlers' driving licences."

The Manchester-based North West Director of Public Health, Professor John Ashcroft, told Metro News he believed proposals to allow groups of up to three prostitutes to work indoors could provide a first step towards registration of brothels.

Prof Ashcroft, who has visited the Netherlands to investigate how the sex industry operates there, said reg

istration of the places where prostitutes worked would enable health officials to access them more easily.

He said he had a threefold interest in the issue:

to reduce assaults and murders

to improve sexual health and the spread of contagious diseases such as syphilis and gonorrhea

to safeguard the health of women who were likely to be neglected by mainstream health services.

Prof Ashcroft said: "I think anything that increases the safety of women working in the sex industry is to be applauded and that this development could also perhaps be built on over the years.

"This could be a first step towards registration of premises. We don't currently have a list of where all of the massage parlours are because it's such a grey area.

"When we first became aware of a problem in Manchester with penicillin-resistant gonorrhea I asked if we had a list of massage parlour establishments, so that health workers could make contact, but there wasn't one - there would be if we had registered premises and this could be the beginning of that."